Former Australian skipper Ian Chappell has shared his opinion on The Hundred, a new format in the game of cricket. It is the brainchild of the England and Wales Cricket Board with 100 balls per innings. With eight teams playing against each other, a tournament is already underway in England and it has gathered a lot of momentum and popularity. Meanwhile, Chappell has come up with his own opinion of the format keeping in mind all the talk regarding cricket being played in the Olympics.
Chappell in his recent column for ESPN Cricinfo has said that the T20 format was enough to take cricket to the Olympics and that the Hundred was not needed. Speaking of the Olympics, it is already underway in Tokyo.
T20 format enough to take cricket into @Olympics, didn't need 'The Hundred', says Ian Chappell
Read: https://t.co/LgRl2qN2Vw#TheHundred #Olympics pic.twitter.com/2ElEsFueJl
— TOI Sports (@toisports) August 1, 2021
“Apart from reducing the number of balls to obtain a terrestrial television deal, the reasoning behind the Hundred could well be that it improves the chances of cricket fulfilling the Olympic dream. This is often cited as a way to spread the game’s popularity to a wider audience. Surely the T20 format could achieve that same outcome without yet another reduction,” Chappell wrote in his column for ESPNcricinfo.
Ian Chappell Said The Hundred Was Not Needed
Speaking further about The Hundred, Ian Chappell said that ECB has further complicated the format of the game. He said that England did it to stay ahead of the competetion in bringing out this new format and have further complicated the game. He said that the ECB has in another way reduced 20 balls of the T20 format which was already popular among the fans.
“Throughout my playing career I believed there were two possible solutions to a problem: a simple one and a complicated one. I also believed that to the benefit of Australia, England would regularly choose the complicated solution. They’ve done it again. To overcome the perceived problem of public not fully conversant with cricket, they’ve concocted another form of the game – The Hundred. That’s right, they’ve reduced by a mere 20 balls a format that was extremely popular with players and the public,” concluded Chappell.
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